Farmers’ protest: Internet suspended in parts of Punjab on the orders of home ministry

The US military has officially declared an end to the mission of its floating pier off the coast of the Gaza Strip that was apparently used to facilitate an Israeli massacre instead of delivering aid to the besieged territory.

Speaking at a news briefing on Wednesday, Navy Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of US Central Command (CENTCOM), claimed that the water dock had “achieved its intended effect to surge a very high volume of aid into Gaza”.

"The maritime surge mission involving the pier is complete. So there's no more need to use the pier," he added.

US President Joe Biden announced back in March the construction of the $230 million pier that involved 1,000 US soldiers and sailors. 

However, bad weather delayed the initial installment of the maritime corridor, and then in late May, broke it apart. Since then, the US military has detached the pier and moved it to the port of Ashdod.

As a result, the pier operated only 25 days and delivered supplies equivalent to just a couple of days’ worth of the aid that flowed into Gaza before Israel’s ongoing genocidal war.

Meanwhile, reports said it facilitated the Israeli massacre against the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza that killed at least 274 people and wounded nearly 700 others on June 8.

The ex-US aid director for the West Bank and Gaza, Dave Harden, said that the now-closed pier was “interesting in theory, but in practice, an absolute failure – and my concern is who will be held accountable?”

“What we have not seen is a robust opening of the crossings … I think this goes first to the Israelis, and second to the Americans,” he told Al Jazeera. “And in the meantime, the Gazans themselves continue to suffer. This was a tragedy compounding a tragedy."

Biden had already expressed disappointment in the temporary water dock, saying, “I was hopeful that would be more successful.”

Several congressmen had also criticized the Gaza pier for its cost and potential risk to US troops.

Furthermore, the Gaza government had condemned the US project as a publicity stunt “to beautify its ugly face.”

Similarly, aid groups had denounced the pier as a distraction, saying Washington should have instead put pressure on Israel to open Gaza crossings and allow humanitarian aid to enter the blockaded Palestinian territory.

“The US wanted to show that it was doing something to aid the humanitarian effort, and yet it wasn’t successful in pushing Israel to do the most obvious necessary thing — which is to allow full access via the land crossing, or allow access from Israeli and West Bank markets,” said Tania Hary, the executive director of Gisha, an Israeli rights group.

“So it put in this incredibly expensive, inefficient workaround that ended up proving to be a completely disastrous waste of money, and a colossal and embarrassing failure on top.”

Israel unleashed its brutal Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023, after the Hamas resistance group carried out its historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the Tel Aviv regime has so far killed at least 38,794 Palestinians, mostly women, and children, in Gaza, and injured 89,166 others.

Mangaluru, July 19: In what is being termed as a result of negligence on the part of Mangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (Mescom), a teenage college girl was electrocuted to death in Muluru, under the limits of Gurupura gram panchayat, in the coastal district of Dakshina Kannada.

The victim has been identified as Ashwini Shetty, a student at a private college in Mangaluru who aspired to become a Chartered Accountant. She is survived by her mother, father, and elder brother.

The tragedy occurred when Ashwini accompanied her father to a paddy field. It is learned that their pet dog, which had followed them, came into contact with a live wire and started struggling. Ashwini, while attempting to rescue the dog, reportedly stepped on the live wire and was electrocuted.

A neighbor of the deceased, speaking about the incident, said, "There were sparks emitting from the wires, and we immediately informed the authorities concerned, but they did not respond to our calls."

"Around 7 pm, we heard someone screaming. Everyone gathered, and we tried to take her to the hospital, but we were unsuccessful in saving her life. This whole incident could have been prevented if the Mescom officials had responded on time and cut the power supply," he added.

Bengaluru: Dengue cases in Karnataka are inching closer to the 10,000-mark, with the total positive cases as of Monday reaching 9,962 according to the health department's bulletin.

Another death in Shivamogga has brought the total fatalities due to dengue to eight. This is, however, not inclusive of the death of an 11-year-old boy in Bengaluru on July 5 that BBMP officials later confirmed was due to dengue.

Nearly 37 per cent of the all dengue positive cases reported across the state till Monday evening were among those aged up to 18 years. The number of dengue cases among children aged 0-1 years has also been on the rise, with 176 cases reported across the state.

The health department has tested over 73,900 blood samples for dengue so far, testing a few thousand samples every day.

A total of 363 cases were recorded in Bengaluru on Monday, with 35 hospitalisations. This brings the total number of positive cases in the city to 3,487. Suspected dengue cases, where people might be displaying similar symptoms as dengue but would not have yet tested positive for the infection, stood at 19,066 cases.

Between January 1 and July 1, the city recorded 1,563 positive cases with 6,443 suspected cases, according to the bulletin. Within the next two weeks, these numbers doubled to 3,124 and 14,281, respectively.

This, according to Dr Savitha S K, programme head of the vector-borne disease control programme wing of the BBMP, was not any cause for alarm. "We are actively searching for cases during our door-to-door surveys and also passively collecting data from hospitals. Last year, data was lost or not captured accurately, particularly in private hospitals, which did not record the addresses of patients. This impacted our total numbers but we are documenting cases better this year," she said.

Sources in the health department who wished to maintain anonymity noted that some of the underreporting at the city level was also in a bid to avoid panic among residents. Therefore, comparison with data from the previous year would not yield accurate results, they noted.